"Last week we had published The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux, and to no real surprise, the feedback ranged from beliefs that it was propaganda to others being grateful that AMD finally shared some additional information with their Linux customers about the fglrx development cycle. While the article was far from being propaganda, what had outraged a number of open-source developers were AMD's comments on the R200 support or there the lack of. In this article, we have a few additional comments to share along with what some open-source developers had to say about AMD's information."

If you want binary blobs you will forever be beholden to the manufacturer. You become helpless. Driver no longer compatible with newer kernel API? Doesn't support awesome new effects feature X? Has a bug? Has a security hole? Hardware is no longer supported by the manufacturer? Are these things going to be fixed? That is up to the manufacturer. If they decide it's not worth their while you are out of luck. These are not theoretical concerns. Every one of those examples occurs today.

Users say they 'just want it to work'. Well making things 'just work' is not magic. If a driver breaks in the ways above it is not 'just working'. You should think about how developers can deliver high quality drivers to you. It's absurd to say that this can be better achieved if only the manufacturer can write them. (Or at least if other developers are purposefully crippled in doing so.)